Cinderella Sucker-punched Max Baer

Imagine sitting in a darkened movie theater, watching Cinderella Man unfold and wanting to scream at the screen, "Hey, they got the wrong bad guy!"

That is what happened to me.

The film by director Ron Howard depicts the thrilling, true-life comeback of Depression-era heavyweight boxer James J. Braddock from impoverished dockworker to world champion. But to get there, Braddock has to defeat the current champ, Max Baer. The bigger and stronger Baer is depicted as a savage thug who threatens Braddock's life and propositions his wife.

As I sat in the theater, the movie patrons whooped and hollered as Braddock (Russell Crowe) and Baer (Craig Bierko) bashed and bloodied each other about the ring on that electrified June night in the Madison Square Garden Bowl in Queens, N.Y., 70 years ago. The moviegoers erupted with joy when Braddock, the Cinderella Man of the title, was crowned the winner and new heavyweight champ. Their delirium paralleled the euphoria felt by Braddock's legion of fans present at the arena on June 13, 1935.

But there is a problem with this depiction. Those who knew the real Max Baer described him as a "likable clown" in and out of the ring. Baer, a member of the Boxing Hall of Fame, both beat and lost to Tommy Loughran, a former light heavyweight champion who was respected as a crafty boxer. Said Loughran of Baer: "Max was the most misunderstood fighter of them all. He was the nicest guy. He had the heart of a lion."

In 1979, Sports Illustrated writer Ron Fimrite characterized "Madcap Maxie" this way: "Above all else, he was a lover, not a fighter."

Wilbur Wood, sports editor of the New York Sun, after watching the carefree Baer train in 1933, wrote, "[Baer] is as playful as a half-grown pup."

Though he was one-quarter Jewish, Baer was respected by the Jewish people during those downtrodden pre-Holocaust days. Baer chose to wear the Star of David on his boxing trunks to drum up support among New York's Jewish boxing fans and to show solidarity.

When he pummeled Hitler's favorite boxer, Max Schmeling, beating him on a technical knockout in the 10th round on June 8, 1933, at Yankee Stadium, Jewish Americans effectively adopted Baer as their hero. (In all fairness to Schmeling, this German was no Nazi. His manager, Joe Jacobs, was Jewish. On Kristallnacht, the night in 1938 when Hitler loosed his Nazi thugs on Germany's unsuspecting Jewish citizens, Schmeling hid two Jewish teens in his hotel room.)

So I and the other Jewish movie patrons who knew of the real Baer had to fight some ambivalence as the movie reached its thundering climax.

Shirley Nelson of Palm Beach County is one who remembers Baer. Back in 1935, she was a 14-year-old Jewish girl from Brooklyn glued to the radio as Baer and Braddock battled for the heavyweight title.

"Of course I was rooting for Baer," Nelson said. "He helped the Jewish people tremendously."

However, my own Jewish mother was an 11-year-old admirer of Braddock back then. I guess she didn't know any better.

"Everybody liked Braddock," Mom told me. "He was a nice man and a good boxer. Baer, although he was a braggart, didn't seem to be a vicious man. He was always smiling."

It seems director Howard felt he had to vilify Baer in order to elevate Braddock to mythic hero.

In one scene, Baer warns Braddock that he would be risking his life in the ring and that Baer would be glad to comfort Braddock's widow (RenM-ie Zellweger). There is no evidence this ever happened. In author Jeremy Schaap's definitive new book on the big fight, also titled Cinderella Man, there is no mention of this verbal exchange.

Howard also emphasized that two of Baer's earlier opponents, Frankie Campbell and Ernie Schaaf, died from head injuries after losing to the rugged, 6-foot-2, 210-pound Baer.

Baer's son, Max Jr., famous for portraying Jethro on The Beverly Hillbillies sitcom of the '60s, wants to set the record straight.

Quoted in the New York Daily News, Baer Jr. said of his dad's depiction in the movie, "That's a lie. My father cried about what happened to Frankie Campbell. He had nightmares. He helped put Frankie's children through college."

Schaaf fought four more fighters before dying, so there is no proof that Baer inflicted the fatal damage.

Isn't it strange that two of America's most-beloved sitcom characters from the the '60s -- Howard's Opie from The Andy Griffith Show and Baer's Jethro Bodine -- would be at odds over a movie made 40 years later?

The real Max Baer Sr. preferred acting to boxing. He made 19 movies and appeared in several popular televison series of the '50s, including The Lone Ranger, Sugarfoot and 77 Sunset Strip. His movie credits include The Prizefighter and the Lady with Myrna Loy, Abbott and Costello in Africa and The Harder They Fall.

When 1933's The Prizefighter and the Lady was banned in Germany on the orders of Hitler, Baer commented, "They didn't ban the picture because I have Jewish blood. They banned it because I knocked out Max Schmeling. It doesn't make much difference to me, but I am sorry for the women and children of Germany. Too bad they didn't get a chance to see the world's greatest lover and the world's greatest fighter in action."

Perhaps the same could be said of Cinderella Man.

Hal Daniels is an adjunct professor of English at Broward Community College and Lynn University, and an English instructor at FAU.